Feel Awesome

If you want to feel energetic, outgoing, happy, and be that person who lights up everybody else's life, then all you need to do is work on your positive mindset, conquer your body, and start living that awesome life you're destined to live.

Steps

Developing an Awesome Mindset

1. Tell the truth. How many times did you fudge the truth today? Maybe it wasn’t a full-fledged lie, but you didn’t own up to how you actually felt. You know how it would feel if you did? Awesome, that’s how.
   • Instead of, “yeah, I’d love to go out with you tonight”, or “sure, pizza sounds good”, say, “nah, I’d rather just stay in tonight”, and order yourself Chinese food. In other words, stick to your guns and what you actually think. It’ll be incredibly freeing.
   • It's important to balance between telling the truth and not hurting someone's feelings. Do tell the truth, but phrase it delicately and diplomatically. If you're mad at a friend, and they ask what's up, tell them. Say something like, "the conversation we had the other day really upset me. I need sometime to myself right now". That's all it takes, and it'll be hard to argue with. Lying will make you feel guilty and it may hurt your friend's feelings to learn the truth.
2. Live in the now. Stop living in the past. It's one of the easiest things to do and yet the one thing you shouldn’t. If you get caught up in how you’ve failed, who’s hurt you, and how you could’ve done something to make it better and didn’t, you will depress yourself. To stay away from that self-blame cycle, stay in the now. Focus on the present. It’s all you’ll ever experience.
   • Switch your focus when you find yourself dwelling. Thinking about how terrible that soccer game was and how you missed that last goal? Stop right there. Start thinking about today's practice and what you're going to improve on. Dwelling on the past will only make your performance worse.
3. Think about how much you have. When you’ve hit a day that makes it hard to feel awesome, sit back and think about how awesome life is. If it’s hard to come up with something, start with your eyes, your arms, and your legs. You sure would miss those if they were gone!
   • Think about your friends, family, and your abilities and accomplishments. Heck, think about the fact that you have the Internet! Life is pretty good.
   • Think about the world, too. How awesome is what's in front of you? Humans, animals, trees, water, the sun - this little blue planet is quite incredible, and you're a part of it!
4. Change your views of yourself. Most of us have that voice in our heads that always pipes up at just the wrong time, telling us we’re dumb, ugly, or somehow undeserving. Sometimes that voice can be wrestled, but sometimes it can’t. However, the more you practice positive thinking and self-awareness, the easier it becomes.
   • Luckily, your mind is controlled by you. Only you can change your self-talk. Once you do, you'll be reeling in confidence, contentment, and awesome vibes. Make an effort to keep your thoughts positive; concentrating on what you have is a good place to start.
5. Feel bad once in a while. It’s true: you can’t really feel good without feeling bad. It’s also a little unrealistic to expect anything otherwise: no one feels awesome 100% of the time. So when you want to feel bad, just feel it. When you start feeling good again (and you will), it’ll feel that much better.
   • Crying is proven to make you happier.[1]
   • Imagine this. Your entire life you've eaten pizza, and then one day you have a different pizza and you realize you've never really, truly experienced a good pizza before this day. It's like that. If it weren't for those mediocre pizzas, you wouldn't have an idea as to how delicious this pizza really is. Now you now what pizza to order and what feelings to strive for.

Feeling Awesome Physically

1. Get moving. It’s long been known that exercise helps combat the effects of anxiety and depression. To feel awesome from the inside out, start exercising regularly, preferably around 30 minutes a day. Do aerobic and weight-training exercises to keep an endurance and muscular balance.
   • If your schedule is hectic and there isn't room for regular exercise, find little opportunities. Take the dog for a longer walk. Vigorously clean your house. Wash your car yourself. Take the stairs. These little things add up!
2. But take a minute to be still. While exercise is great for the body, the opposite is good too. Meditation – or simply taking a few minutes to be still and observe your surroundings – is great for the mind as well. And to top it off, it shows that those who meditate reap the positive effects of meditation even outside of the meditative state. If you take a moment to be relaxed, you’ll be relaxed all day..
   • Not into meditation? That's fine. Take a 15-minute chunk out of your day to just be reflective. Not your style? Reading books and even playing video games may help you relax, too.
3. Eat fresh and healthy. It won’t come as a surprise to you that the better you eat (fresh foods full of vitamins and nutrients), the better you’ll feel from the inside out. Even serious mental disorders are made better with health eating. When we put good foods into our bodies, the food puts a pep in our step; eating unhealthy can bring us down and make us lazy.
   • You need about 2 cups each of fruits and vegetables every day, depending on your gender, age, and activity level.
   • Protein and fats are important, too! For protein, eat plenty of fish and chicken. As for fats, your body does need the healthy kind; the unsaturated fats found in nuts, fatty fish, and olive oil.
4. Energize your diet, too. In addition to eating healthy, you can eat to energize your body, making your mind and body more productive. The below foods are energizing in addition to being super healthy:
   • Yogurt
   • Kale
   • Broccoli
   • Almonds
   • Chia seeds
   • Salmon and trout
   • Turkey
   • Asparagus
5. Give your body enough sleep. Most people need between 7-9 hours of sleep to feel like they’re at the best. When your body isn’t in tiptop condition, it’s hard for your mind to get on board. To expect yourself to feel awesome, be sure your body is well-rested.
   • It should be a good night's sleep, too. Turn off all your electronics well before bedtime, settle down your mind with a book or other light activity, turn down the heat, and snuggle up under the covers. The fewer disturbances you have, the better.
6. Get outside. Light increases your serotonin levels, the little happy-making hormone in your brain. It also gets your body vitamin D, which isn't found in food. What’s more, it just feels good.
   • Whether that means taking your lunch to the park, walking the dog yourself every day, or taking a vacation to get away from it all, there's no wrong way to go about it. And if being outside isn't an option, certain lamps and light bulbs now are marketed as "artificial sunlight", fooling your body into thinking it's outside.

Having Awesome Habits

1. Get all fancy. Imagine yourself with pajamas on, your head looking like it got wrung through the dryer, and little footie slippers on your feet walking into your neighborhood grocery store. You’d rather not, huh? The image evokes a sense of shame and embarrassment, even though there’s nothing wrong with it. Instead, imagine yourself dressed to the nines, hair manicured just right, with silver buckles on your shoes. Feels pretty good. So on those days when feeling awesome is a battle, get fancy. Sometimes you just have to work from the outside in.
   • There's science behind this, too: doctors who wear their white coat and dress clothes while testing perform better. Soccer coaches who dress in suits and ties instead of sweats get better results from their players. Who knows? Maybe getting fancy would change the effect you have on people, too!
2. Nestle yourself firmly into a community. Very few people are happy when they don’t have others to rely on and to share their happiness with. What’s more, having others around can get you out of those moods when that happiness is hard to come by. To feel like you’re impacting others’ lives for the better, get involved. Make yourself an integral part of a group. The group will be better for it, and so will you.
   • Research supports the same idea, turns out. Happiness is essentially the same thing as being well-connected. The more positive connections you have and the stronger your friendships, the happier you'll feel.
3. Surprise yourself from time to time. Having new experiences is one of the simplest ways to stay feeling invigorated, otherwise life can get a little boring. Routines are great, but they need to be deviated from time to time. Take a day once in a while to do something brand new to lead to surprising, exciting experiences. You may run into something you love!
   • Having new experiences and surprising yourself is a great way to keep laughing. Research has shown that those who laugh are happier and more productive. And it feels good, too!
4. Use technology and the media only to feel good. It seems like the news is getting worse and worse. Media outlets are stretching further and further to get a rise out of us, to surprise us, and to keep us captivated. But as a result, our overall happiness is suffering. Research has recently found that those who read the news are less happy. If you're feeling a less awesome than you'd like, turn off the notifications on your phone and sign off the Internet for a bit. You'll likely feel better.
   • If you're a news junkie, make efforts to limit how much of your time is spent on news outlets and social media sites, which are just as bad. At first you'll feel a sense of withdrawal, but after it passes you'll wonder why you even wasted your time in the first place.
5. Develop the habit of helping others. You know how they say "it's better to give than to receive"? Well, it actually is. Helping others can make you feel good about yourself, happier, and more awesome. Here are some ideas:
   • Volunteer at your local hospital, soup kitchen, or shelter
   • Help out a few elderly people you know
   • Assist your friends who you know could use a hand
6. Do what speaks to you. You likely have a handful of friends that do things because they're expected to, because their parents want them to, or because they want something materialistic, like money. This is a one-way ticket in the fast lane to feeling pretty darn miserable. It should be one of your top priorities to do what you enjoy, regardless of what it is. If you enjoy it, it's not a waste of time. You'll feel awesome doing what you love, honing your skills, and becoming a master at something that has meaning to you.
   • Not all of us can fulfill our dreams, but we can take strides to make aspects of the dream a part of our lives. Love basketball, but you know you'll never play it professionally? Join a league. Coach at a school. Referee the local league. Play with your kids or friends on the weekends. Keep it in your life as much as you can.

Tips

• Try talking to other people that you don't know. That will let others know that you are outspoken and willing to make friends.
• Wearing makeup may make you feel awesome, but not too much.
  • There's nothing wrong with wearing it if you're male, either! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
• Don't let anyone control you, or bring you down. They may not like you, but rest assured, many more will like you for you.
• Always be yourself, just a brighter you.
• Believe in yourself. The world is very nice place to be at with wonderful people around.

Related Articles

• Be a Normal Good Looking Girl from Inside and Outside
• Overcome Shyness
• Feel Confident

Sources and Citations

See also

• Stay Present
• Overcome Culture Shock
• Combat Learned Dependency
• Stay Inspired
• Be Happy
• Be Proud of Being a Homebody
• Release Endorphins
• Tickle Feet
• Have Fun
• Be Optimistic

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